The World Bank is set to allocate millions of dollars for emergency aid to the war-torn Gaza Strip, a top official says.

Inger Andersen says the aid, expected to be approved Oct. 30, will fund repairs to damaged infrastructure and help the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority recover losses incurred in Israel’s five-week assault.

“We’re rushing through four emergency projects right now,” Andersen, the World Bank’s vice president for the Middle East and North Africa, said in an interview with Ma’an, which will air over the weekend.

“We are trying very much to respond to this crisis and respond quickly enough.”

The budget assistance will allow the Palestinian Authority to recoup the costs of medical bills from treating thousands of Palestinians hurt in the 50 days of violence.

The rest of the $63 million will go toward repairing water, power and municipal infrastructure. Existing World Bank projects are worth a combined $180 million, of which half is designated for Gaza.

Over 11,000 Palestinians suffered injuries during fighting between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza during July and August, according to United Nations estimates. More than 2,000 Palestinians and 73 Israelis died.

The UN also counts 18,000 households as destroyed or damaged, while over 100,000 Palestinians remained displaced by September. The enclave’s sole power plant has operated only a few hours per day since it came under fire.

‘New and additional’ aid

On Oct. 12, international donors pledged over $5 billion at a Cairo conference on reconstructing the coastal enclave.

Andersen said that response “has to be commended” but she urged donors not to simply reallocate funds pledged for existing projects, or from the West Bank.

“Redistributing money from before the crisis would create an untenable and unsustainable situation with respect to the budget deficit. Donors need to step up, and step up with more resources,” Andersen said.

“This money has to move fast and has to be new and has to be additional.”

She also warned donors against neglecting Gaza and the Palestinian territories as violence rages in Iraq and Syria. The World Bank shut down operations in Syria in 2012 but maintains an office in Baghdad.

Inger Andersen at Ma’an headquarters

In the interview, recorded Tuesday, Andersen dismissed complaints from Hamas and others in Gaza that much of the pledged money would end up being spent on the West Bank.

“It will be very important that the authority spends this on rehabilitation in Gaza. I have no reason to believe this will not be the case,” she said, adding that the World Bank had no intention to cooperate with Hamas.

“We deal with the institutions that are the expression of the Palestinian Authority,” which is based in the West Bank. “These institutions are the ones with whom we have relations with and with whom we sign agreements.”

Hamas says the authorities in Gaza itself should be included in the decision-making process, and it has criticized Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah’s insistence that the funds go through the West Bank-based government.

Hamadallah announced earlier in October that about half of the funds promised in Cairo would be spent in the West Bank. His remarks drew criticism from Hamas, which formed a consensus government with its rival Fatah in June.

Andersen said the bank’s operations had not changed since that deal.

“At a technical level, we are dealing with the very same people. How that expression of the consensus government might express that is still to be born out,” she said.

Bank must be transparent

Andersen, a 14-year veteran of the organization, says she will step down in January 2015 to head the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

She would become the fourth high-profile employee to leave the bank since President Jim Yong Kim took charge in 2012 and instituted a controversial restructuring plan.

While some of the bank’s 15,000 employees have voiced concerns about a lack of transparency amid the reshuffling, Andersen said the management had taken measures to mitigate fears.

“Maybe the learning point that we’ve taken is more communication with staff is important,” she said. “I think our president has stepped up in a significant way ... to ensure that we can be as transparent as possible.

“Which is, after all, what we preach to our government clients - right?”

Indirect negotiations between Palestinians and Israel in the wake of the 50-day Gaza assault will resume on October 27, an Islamic Jihad leader said Thursday.

Khalid al-Batsh told Ma'an that the Egyptian side had sent both sides invitations to resume indirect negotiations on Monday, and that the agenda will focus on expanding the zone allowed to Gaza fishermen as well as other topics raised in earlier rounds of talks but not settled.

He pointed out that the Israeli violations of the ceasefire should be "confronted in the field" and that the resistance should fight back against these violations immediately, adding that putting an end to these violations will be on the Palestinian delegation's agenda.

For the most part, however, al-Batsh said that the agenda would remain similar to earlier rounds of talks due to Israel's failure to fulfill a number of key demands.

Israel and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip ended over seven weeks of fighting on Aug. 26 with a long-term ceasefire agreement in which Israel agreed to ease its siege on the coastal enclave and immediately expand the fishing zone off its coast.

Further negotiations regarding other key unresolved issues took place in September.

Despite Israeli promises, there have been widespread reports that the fishing zone has not been increased as promised, with numerous instances of Palestinian fishermen claiming to have been fired upon by Israeli forces well within the newly-imposed six-mile limit.

Israel has severely limited Gaza's imports and exports since 2006, also imposing a no-go buffer zone ranging from 500 to 1,500 meters from the border, an area encompassing 17 percent of Gaza's total land.

The siege has led to frequent humanitarian crises for Gazans, and the UN and various human rights groups have repeatedly called on Israel to lift it.

Lifting the blockade was Palestinian factions' chief demand in negotiations to end the fighting, which left over 2,100 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians, in addition to 71 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

Hamas is against ideological, political, or military extremism, Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, Khaled Mishaal told the American Vanity Fair magazine, adding: “We are for moderation. We are against any aggression, or any killing of innocent human beings, regardless of their beliefs or race.” “We believe in the right to resistance against the occupation. This is a legitimate right of the people,” Mishaal confirmed, adding: “Biased U.S. foreign policies toward Israel, and its policies in the region over the last few years, is a form of extremism. Extremism is condemned, irrespective of who is wielding it.” Asked whether he would consider this summer’s war with Israel to be a victory, Mishaal said: “The war was imposed on us and we simply defended ourselves . . . we stood our ground in this war. We thwarted Netanyahu’s plot.” “The steadfastness showcased by Gaza is a victory. It sent a message to the world that there is something called the “Palestinian cause” . . . that the occupation must be brought to an end, that the settlements’ expansions must stop, and that the blockade on Gaza must be lifted,” he maintained. “The tunnels were one of our innovations. The Israeli army is stronger than us. It possesses a great destructive power. It has airplanes, artillery. It possesses the strongest weapons arsenal in the region. Therefore, what Hamas and other resistance factions are doing in Gaza, with the full support of our people, is just an attempt to ensure the necessary means to protect our people,” he further stated. “When Israelis declared war on Gaza, they did not declare the tunnels as part of the military targets. But when they discovered the tunnels, this is when they started to raise the issue. This proves that they first started the war, and then looked for justifications,” Mishaal added. “The resistance in Palestine is engaged in resistance against the occupation army and the settlers, those who live on unlawful land in the West Bank. This is occupied land by virtue of international law, and even by American law. The presence of the Israeli army and the settlers on this land is therefore illegitimate,” he said. According to Mishaal, Hamas spend part of its funds on services for Palestinians. Hamas “built hospitals, schools, universities, and nursery schools. It also built workshops for needy families.” As for the ceasefire, Hamas leader said the initiative was built on the principle that all hostilities must first come to an end, and then negotiations can begin. Such terms were essentially based on lifting the blockade, reopening the border crossings, and giving the people normal living circumstances. “Those who must be held accountable for the killing of Palestinian children and women are the Israeli leaders,” he charged. “Hamas’s position and its principles are clear. We do not seek to kill Jews or any other people of any faith, nationality, or race. We are only engaged in resistance against those who occupy our land, regardless of their religious beliefs or race. We do not kill Israelis because they are Jews. We kill them because they are occupiers. . . This falls in the context of self-defense and defending our land. This is a legitimate right recognized by all religions and by international laws,” Mishaal proceeded. “Mohammed Deif is alive. The Israelis failed to kill him. But they succeeded in killing his wife and his two children. Mohammed Deif is still alive, and will continue to fight the Israeli aggression and occupation inshallah,’’ Mishaal vowed.

Palestinian medical sources have reported that a child was killed, after an undetonated explosive dropped by the Israeli army, during the latest aggression on Gaza, went off in Beit Hanoun, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the child has been identified as Mohammad Sami Abu Jarad, age 4.

The child suffered serious injuries to the head, face, chest and various parts of his body when the explosive went off, as he was playing near it on Zeitoun Street, in Beit Hanoun.

More than 2,142 Palestinians have been killed during Israeli’s 52-day aggression on Gaza that officially began on July 8, 2014, one day after the Israeli army assassinated eight resistance fighters for firing missiles at them, in two separate attacks.

Some of the victims died of their wounds after the ceasefire agreement was reached.

The number of slain Palestinians killed by Israeli missiles and shells includes at least 578 children, 264 women, and 103 elderly, while more than 11.100, including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly have been injured.

Table of Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Fishermen in Gaza City in September 2014

Israeli Naval forces continued to carry out attacks on Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip during the reporting period[1] (1 – 30 September 2014), including 18 shooting incidents that resulted in the injury of a fishermen while fishing.

4 chasing incidents that led to the arrest of 11 fishermen; and confiscation of 4 fishing boats and 22 pieces of fishing nets belonging to Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli naval forces did not comply with the ceasefire agreement concluded between Israel and Palestinian armed groups under Egyptian auspices on 26 August 2014.

This agreement includes allowing Palestinian fishermen to sail within 6 nautical miles in the Gaza Sea.

According to PCHR's investigations, all attacks took place within the distance of 6 nautical miles, which proves that Israeli forces' policies aim to tighten restrictions on the Gaza Strip's fishermen and their livelihoods.

Violations of the International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law

Israel’s attacks against Palestinian fishermen, who do not pose any threat to Israeli soldiers, in the Gaza Strip constitute a flagrant violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, relevant to the protection of the civilian population and respect for its rights, including every person's right to work, and the right to life, liberty and security of person, as codified in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), despite the fact that Israel is a State Party to the Covenant.

Furthermore, these attacks occurred in a time where the fishers did not pose any threat to the Israeli naval troops, as they were doing their job to secure a living. Israeli violations in the reporting period were as follows:

First: Shooting Incidents

During the reporting period, PCHR documented 18 cases in which Israeli forces fired at Palestinian fishermen in the sea off the Gaza Strip shore. As a result, a fisherman was injured.

- On 17 September 2014, Israeli forces stationed on watchtowers along the coastal borderline, northwest of al-Sayafa area, north of Beit Lahia, opened fire at a group of fishermen who were near the Access Restricted Area (ARA).

As a result, Jom'aah Ahmed Mohammed Zayed (69), from Beit Lahia, was wounded by a bullet to the right leg cutting one of the veins.

It should be mentioned that Zayed was standing 200 meters away from the coastal border fence and directing his sons, who were fishing inside the waters.

He was taken to Kamal 'Ewan Hospital in Beit Lahia to receive medical treatment and was then transferred to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City where medical sources described his injury as moderate.

Second: Arrest of Fishermen:

PCHR documented incidents in which Israeli naval forces arrested and chased 11 fishermen while they were sailing within about 1.5 nautical mile off northern Gaza and Gaza City shore.

- At approximately 06:30 on 03 September 2014, Israeli gunboats opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within one nautical mile off Beit Lahia shore in the northern Gaza Strip.

The U.N. Secretary-General has warned that winter is coming while more than 100,000 Palestinians remain homeless in the blockaded Gaza Strip, saying nothing could prepare him for the wholesale destruction he witnessed in Gaza. Ki-moon’s statement was voiced Tuesday during a Security Council briefing on the situation and developments in the Middle East. “More than 100,000 residents of Gaza remain homeless with over 50,000 still sheltering in UNRWA school buildings. Many still lack access to the municipal water network. Blackouts of up to 18 hours per day are common,” the UN Secretary-General said. “Meanwhile winter is approaching” Ki-moon warned. ”I urge the international community to move quickly to deliver much needed assistance.” “Nothing could have prepared me for what I witnessed in Gaza,” he further maintained. ”I saw mile after mile of wholesale destruction. I visited a United Nations school in the Jabalia refugee camp which was shelled during the hostilities. Civilians had sought protection under the UN flag.” “Parents and children shared heart-wrenching accounts of suffering and pain. I met a young man whose brothers and sisters perished in the blasts. He is now confined to a wheelchair having lost his legs,” Ki-moon added. The secretary-general said he was anticipating a thorough investigation by the Israeli occupation army of the latest military operation in the besieged Gaza Strip. He said he was also planning to move forward with an independent board of inquiry to look into the most serious and flagrant cases in which UN facilities and civilian structures sustained rocket-hits and many innocent people were killed. UN’s Ki-moon hailed the co-chairs of the Gaza’s donors' conference, Cairo and Norway, declaring: “It is important that these promises quickly materialize into concrete assistance on the ground."

Israeli navy boats attacked, on Wednesday morning, a Palestinian fishing boat close to the Gaza shore in the Sudaniyya area, north of Gaza City. Eyewitnesses said the navy fired rounds of live ammunition at a boat belonging to members of Abu Bakr family, and kidnapped five of them.

The kidnapped fishermen were taken to an unknown destination.

The navy frequently targets Palestinian fishing boats in Gaza territorial waters, leading to several casualties, abductions and excessive property damage.

Also on Wednesday, a number of fishing boats came under Egyptian navy fire near Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

In related news, the Israeli army kidnapped a Palestinian near a Kibbutz close to the Gaza border, east of the coastal region, and took him to an interrogation center.

Israeli sources said the Palestinian was unarmed.

There have been dozens of arrests of Palestinians looking for work in Israel, after they managed to leave Gaza through areas close to the border fence, or while trying to cross.

Professor Hillel Vice, a university lecturer at the Israeli Bar-IIan University, sparked a public outrage after he launched calls for wiping out the Palestinian people. Vice wrote on his Facebook page: “The liquidation of the Palestinian people is an unavoidable undertaking”, and “The Arab movements exist to kill and spread insanity.” The Israeli Jerusalem Online newspaper on Monday quoted Vice, who did not express any regret, as claiming: “The fact that Abu Mazen (PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas) called us murderers on the UN General Assembly stage stirred up my wrath.” Vice, currently serving as the chairman of the so-called Friends of the Temple, dubbed the Palestinian people as some insignificant minority. “You are not a nation. You are an insignificant minority, the faster you leave Israel willingly, the better it will be for you,” Vice’s Facebook statement read verbatim.

Noam Chomsky 20 October 2014. Posted in NewsWe have come perilously close to disaster before, says Noam Chomsky, and are toying with catastrophe again. It is not that possible peaceful solutions are lacking.In October 2014, the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research (www.pipr.co.uk) asked Noam Chomsky to comment on some important world developments, including the threat of nuclear war, the recent escalation of violence in Gaza, and the growth of ISIS in Iraq.This year commemorates the centenary of the 1914-18 First World War. What are your reflections?THERE IS much debate about assignment of responsibility/blame for the outbreak of this horrendous conflict, along with general agreement about one point: There was a high level of accident and contingency; decisions could easily have been different, avoiding catastrophe. There are ominous parallels to nuclear catastrophe.An investigation of the history of near-confrontations with nuclear weapons reveals how close the world has come to virtual self-annihilation, numerous times, so much so that escape has been a near miracle, one unlikely to be perpetuated for too long. The record underscores the warning of Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in 1955 that we face a choice that is "stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?"A second no less chilling observation is the alacrity of the rush to war on all sides, in particular the instant dedication of intellectuals to the cause of their own states, with a small fringe of notable exceptions, almost all of whom were punished for their sanity and integrity – a microcosm of the history of the cultivated and educated sectors of society, and the mass hysteria that they often articulate.The commemorations began around the same time as Operation Protective Edge. It is a tragic irony that Gaza is home to WWI memorial graves. What were the real—as opposed to rhetorical reasons—for Israel's latest assault on Gaza?It is critically important to recognize that a pattern was established almost a decade ago and has been followed regularly since: A ceasefire agreement is reached, Israel makes it clear that it will not observe it and continues its assault on Gaza (and illegal takeover of what it wants elsewhere in the occupied territories), while Hamas observes the ceasefire, as Israel concedes, until some Israeli escalation elicits a Hamas response, offering Israel a pretext for another episode of "mowing the lawn" (in Israel's elegant parlance).I have reviewed the record elsewhere; it is unusually clear for historical events. The same pattern holds for Operation Protective Edge. Another of the series of ceasefires had been reached in November 2012. Israel ignored it as usual, Hamas observed it nevertheless.In April 2014, Gaza-based Hamas and the Palestine Authority in the West Bank established a unity government, which at once adopted all of the demands of the Quartet (the US, EU, UN, Russia) and included no Hamas members. Israel was infuriated, and launched a brutal operation in the West Bank, extending to Gaza, targeting mainly Hamas. As always there was a pretext, but it quickly dissolves on inspection. Finally killings in Gaza elicited a Hamas response, followed by Protective Edge.The reasons for Israel's fury are not obscure. For 20 years, Israel has sought to separate Gaza from the West Bank, with full US support and in strict violation of the Oslo Accords that both had signed, which declare the two to be a single indivisible territorial entity.A look at the map explains the reasons. Gaza offers the only access for Palestine to the outside world; without free access to Gaza, any autonomy that might be granted to some fragmented Palestinian entity in the West Bank will be effectively imprisoned.The Governments of Israel, Britain, and the US are surely thrilled with the appearance of ISIS; a new 'threat' providing them with new excuses for war and internal repression. What are your thoughts about ISIS and the latest bombing of Iraq?Reporting is limited, so what we can conclude is necessarily a construction from scattered evidence. To me it looks like this:ISIS is a real monstrosity, one of the many horrifying consequences of the US sledgehammer, which among other crimes, incited sectarian conflicts that may by now have destroyed Iraq finally and are tearing the region to shreds.The almost instantaneous defeat of the Iraqi army was quite an astonishing event. This was an army of 350,000 men, heavily armed, trained by the US for over a decade. The Iraqi army had fought a long and bitter war against Iran through the 1980s. As soon as it was confronted by a few thousand lightly armed militants, the commanding officers fled and the demoralized troops either fled with them or deserted or were massacred.By now ISIS controls almost all of Anbar province and is not far from Baghdad. With the Iraqi army virtually gone, the fighting in Iraq is in the hands of Shiite militias organized by the sectarian government, which are carrying out crimes against Sunnis that mirror those of ISIS.With crucial assistance from the military wing of the Turkish Kurds, the PKK, the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga has apparently held off ISIS. It seems that the PKK are also the most significant force that rescued the Yazidi from extermination and are holding off ISIS in Syria, including the crucial defense of Kobane.Meanwhile Turkey has escalated its attacks against the PKK, with US tolerance if not support. It appears that Turkey is satisfied to watch its enemies – ISIS and the Kurds – killing one another within eyesight of the border, with awful consequences likely if the Kurds cannot withstand the ISIS assault on Kobane and beyond.Another major opponent of ISIS, Iran, is excluded from the US "coalition" for policy and ideological reasons, as of course is their ally Assad. The US-led coalition includes a few of the Arab oil dictatorships that are themselves supporting competing jihadi groups. The major one, Saudi Arabia, has long been the major source of funding for ISIS as well as providing its ideological roots—no small matter.ISIS is an extremist offshoot of Saudi Wahabi/Salafi doctrines, themselves an extremist version of Islam; and a missionary version, using huge Saudi oil resources to spread their teachings throughout much of the Muslim world. The US, like Britain before it, has tended to support radical fundamentalist Islam in opposition to secular nationalism, and Saudi Arabia has been a primary US ally since the family dictatorship was consolidated and vast oil resources were discovered there.The best informed journalist and analyst of the region right now, Patrick Cockburn, describes US strategy, such as it is, as an Alice-in-Wonderland construction, opposing both ISIS and its main enemies, and loosely incorporating dubious Arab allies with limited European support.An alternative would be to adhere to domestic and international law: appealing to the UN Security Council and then following its lead, and seeking political and diplomatic avenues to escape from the morass or at least mitigate its horrors. But that is almost unthinkable in US political culture.As military operations in Iraq grow, NATO further destabilizes Ukraine. What are your thoughts about the US-Russia proxy conflict and its potential for nuclear war?It is an extremely dangerous development, which has been brewing ever since Washington violated its verbal promises to Gorbachev and began expanding NATO to the East, right to Russia's borders, and threatening to incorporate Ukraine, which is of great strategic significance to Russia and of course has close historical and cultural links.There is a sensible analysis of the situation in the leading establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, by international relations specialist John Mearsheimer, entitled "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault." The Russian autocracy is far from blameless, but we are now back to earlier comments: we have come perilously close to disaster before, and are toying with catastrophe again. It is not that possible peaceful solutions are lacking.One final thought, about a dark and menacing cloud that looms over everything we discuss: like the proverbial lemmings, we are marching resolutely towards an environmental crisis that may well displace other concerns, in the not too distant future.Source: Plymouth Institute for Peace Research

Member of Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and head of Popular Committee against the Siege Jamal Khudari said Monday that Israel disrupts Gaza reconstruction process as it still closes the border crossings and tights its siege on the Strip. Al-Khudari stated that Gazan citizens are still waiting for practical steps for the implementation of the recommendations of Gaza reconstruction conference during which the donor countries pledged five billion dollars to help rebuild the Strip. He called on the international community to take firm position towards Israeli deliberate disruption of the conference’s recommendations and to intervene to end Gaza illegal siege. MP Khudari also called on the Egyptian authorities to allow construction materials’ entry to Gaza via Rafah crossing. Meanwhile, URWA declared its intention to increase the urgently needed emergency relief assistance to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip following UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s visit to the Strip. UNRWA is scaling up its response to meet critical needs of people in the Strip. “We are focusing on providing food, water and sanitation services to over 40,000 displaced people in 18 of our installations, psycho-social support particularly for children, cash grants to the homeless for rent, as well as urgent repairs to 118 UNRWA installations, so that we can bring our services to full capacity” it said, adding, “Our immediate aim is to help ensure that some of the most seriously affected families are able to improve their situation rapidly”. "The critical priority remains urgently needed reconstruction for large numbers of people. As assessments continue, we have revised upwards figures of homes destroyed and people affected. We now estimate that over 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, affecting more than 600,000 people. These are the latest figures and are likely to rise as UNRWA social workers and engineers continue their homes visits and inspections." “The enormity of the task ahead is becoming clear and UNRWA’s increased pace of recovery and emergency work reflects this,” said Pierre Krähenbühl, UNRWA Commissioner General. “Cairo saw important commitments made, which we welcome. On the ground we are confronted with high expectations by thousands of families in critical need. We therefore urge that pledges be rapidly transformed into actual contributions that will allow us to start the process of rebuilding.” Ahmad Kurd, coordinator of the charitable institutions in the Gaza Strip called for intensifying efforts to accelerate the entry of humanitarian aids in light of the Strip's critical phase after the Israeli aggression in particular with the winter approaching. Reconstruction of the hundreds of destroyed homes is critical as winter approaches, he told the PIC reporter. 40,000 homes in Gaza are partially damaged, while 18,000 others are totally damaged, he pointed out.

Senior Hamas official and lawmaker Salah Al-Bardawil said his Movement has powerful cards that would enable it to force the Israeli occupation to fulfill its obligations under the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement. In press remarks on Sunday to the Palestinian legislative council's parliamentary newspaper, Bardawil affirmed that his Movement is able to pressure the Israeli side during the indirect talks in Cairo to fulfil the just demands of the Palestinian people in Gaza. He added that the issue of Gaza seaport and airport would be tabled during the indirect talks in Cairo at the end of the current month. In another context, the Hamas official said that his Movement and Fatah faction agreed on convening the Palestinian legislative council (PLC) before November 15 to grant the unity government a confidence vote and to agree on the formation of a committee for the PLC presidium . He also added that Hamas supported the unity government and facilitated its first meeting in Gaza, but he stressed the need for supporting it as well by Fatah and president Mahmoud Abbas or else its mission would be very difficult.

Thousands of Gaza’s displaced citizens sank in the floods of torrential rains that rocked the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday, fanning the flames of the already-tragic state of affairs many have been made to endure in the wake of the latest Israeli offensive. UNRWA shelters have been crammed with daily scenes of the sort as thousands of homeless Palestinians, without roofs over their heads, have become covered from head to toe with the floods of drenching rain, amid a growing inquiry as to how and when will the funds pledged to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip come into sight. The heavy downpours have made matters remarkably worse for the besieged enclave, already blemished by a belligerent Israeli military operation that took away the lives of at least 2,160 Palestinians and left some 11,000 wounded. The offensive forced entire civilian families to wander down and out in Gaza streets after Israel’s rains of rocket fire turned their own and only homes into mounds of rubble. Observers wondered as to whether and when the $5.4 billion funds pledged in the Cairo donors’ conference would soon be turned into tangible cash or just remain mere promises that would never truly see the day. “Nothing has remained of our personal items, which we purchased as we’ve gone dispossessed, after the rainstorm bucketed down.” Al-Rimal’s schoolchildren, west of Gaza City, said with tears in their eyes: “We’re very afraid as to how we would spend the dark night in the midst of such hard rainfalls.” “We’ve been told that 50 countries convened in Cairo to bring us shelters and relief. But there is no single shekel, among the millions of pledged dollars, that we took delivery of,” they further charged. “Even mattresses have become a luxury for us here.”

Dozens of Gazan families, who were displaced by Israel's last war, were forced to leave their prefabricated homes in Khuza'a area, east of Khan Younis, after they were flooded by rainwater. Local sources said that the area, where the residents live in mobile homes in Khuza'a, was inundated by rising waters because of the heavy rain that fell over Gaza for several days. The sources noted that the residents of this area had complained several days ago before it started to rain heavily that the location where their mobile homes were placed could be vulnerable to flood waters. All the homes also sustained electrical short circuits and power failures caused by their exposure to lightning strikes. The residents expressed their dismay over the failure of the company that designed these mobile homes to take into account their ability to withstand bad weather conditions, and appealed to the concerned parties to urgently find a solution to their suffering.